His body was already warm, and the heat seeped into my back and thighs. The fire sparked and crackled as we sat in silence, his naked body against mine.
He kissed the top of my head and murmured, “Don’t do that again, Rainbird.”
I tilted my head back against his shoulder and raised my chin to look up at him. “I won’t as long as you don’t.” His jaw flexed, and his eyes darkened for a second, as if he was going to object. Instead, he remained silent. I was getting that was Vic’s go-to response when he didn’t want to argue.
My skin tingled, and it was almost painful as the circulation returned and warmth invaded. “Why wasn’t the hot water working?” I’d showered here before and there’d been hot water.
“I keep it turned off.”
“Why?”
He inhaled a ragged breath. “So I don’t forget.”
“Your brother?”
He kissed the top of my head again, his lips lingering this time. “Yeah. Noah.”
“How old was he?”
I may not understand what it was like to watch a brother die and not be able to do anything about it, but I did know what it was like to feel responsible for someone else’s suffering. I hadn’t watched what Jackson had gone through, but the guilt was there. The constant feeling that I’d been the one to do that to him. To put those nightmares in his eyes.
Vic carried the guilt of not being able to save his brother. Of failing.
“Eight. He was only eight. We’d stolen some jewelry from a house and were hiding in the sewers because we set the alarm off.” His arms tightened around me. “Hank, my dad, was a corrupt cop and a bastard. He’d give us the layout on places, and we’d go in and steal the goods. Drugs, jewels, whatever. That one, he fucked up on. There wasn’t supposed to be an alarm.”
Oh my God. That was horrible. How could a father do that to his own kids? They were his mules.
“It started raining, and the sewers filled up fast. I climbed out, but Noah was hiding in a different one, and the grate had latched. He couldn’t get it open.”
Tears pooled in my eyes and my throat constricted.
“I couldn’t get it open,” he whispered.
The fire crackled and sparked. “It’s why you risk your life to save others.”
“No, baby. I don’t do it to save people. I do it to kill them.”
I half turned in his arms to look at him. “The bad guys. But maybe it’s because you couldn’t save him, so you have to save others.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. I snuggled back into his arms, and he squeezed me to him. Maybe he already knew that, or maybe he was just placating me so he didn’t have to talk about it.
I wiggled my butt, shifting closer to him, and his cock hardened.
His fingers trailed across the side of my neck, pushing the wet strands aside. He curled his body around me and trailed kisses down my neck. My body instantly awakened to his touch, and my sex tweaked.
I dragged his palm down my belly and pressed it between my legs, a groan escaping me the second his callused fingers touched the pulsing nub.
“Show me,” he growled next to my ear. “Show me how you get yourself off while I fuck you with my fingers.”
Oh my God. I’d never done anything like that. Yeah, I got myself off, and I had a vibrator, but I was alone when I did it. I didn’t have a guy watching me pleasure myself.
His fingers slid lower, parting my lips and slipping through the wetness, up and down. “So fuckin’ wet for me, baby.”
I was. I was soaked whenever he touched me. His cock pressed into the small of my back, and I wanted him inside me.
“I won’t ask again, Rainbird,” he murmured before plunging two fingers inside me.
I gasped, eyes closing, throwing my head against his shoulder in pure pleasure. His other hand grabbed mine, and he linked our fingers together, placing them over the sensitive nub.